Tainting Love
by Ten-Faced
Summary: /Escape of the Witch, Salmhofer Setting\ Fall in love, suffer pains in your heart. Fall in love with Evil, and corrupt your purity. She let it stain her, with no regrets at all as she became the witch. Meta x Pale or Meiko x Kiyoteru.
1. Chapter 1

Has anyone heard the new MOTHY song, Escape of the Witch, Salmhofer, by MEIKO? I love it, personally. I also - wait for it - owe absolutely _nothing_! Isn't _that_ a slap to the face? *sarcasm*

* * *

The pounding at the door continued. Someone outside had been smashing their fists against that flimsy, weak door for over three minutes, and Meta Salmhofer was scared. She was all too familiar with just what people could do. She curled up even further into herself.

A grunt of frustration could be heard, and then her eyes widened at the clicking, rattling sounds coming from the knob. The person was picking the lock!

Meta tumbled off her bed, and stumbled towards the door, mind set on jamming the door by placing the chair next to the entrance under the knob, the piece of furniture kept there for that very purpose.

As she gripped the wooden back, the lock let out a loud snap and the door swung open. She nearly threw the chair at the intruder, but froze at the familiar face.

"Pale?" Meta half-shrieked, eyes double their usual size. "Pale _Noël_?!"

"Meta?" he whispered, his voice hoarse from lack of use. His normally narrowed eyes were wide, no trace of murderous intent in them for once. Instead, they were filled with shock – shock and yearning.

Meta stared. She stared, focusing all of her senses on the man in front of her. Brown hair, pale skin, glasses over the brown eyes she loved so much, worn clothes, lean muscles…

"Pale?" she choked out. "Is it really you?"

Pale Noël nodded, still staring at her as if he was transfixed. Staring like this, so open and honest-like, Pale could have easily been mistaken for a normal man.

Was this a dream? Many times, Meta had dreamed that he would come back to her, would look at her like this. The only person in this cruel world who had cared for her, loved her, it wasn't hard to drift off into the land of fantasies, and bring them into the real world to lessen the pain.

Hand trembling, she reached out slowly towards his face, careful not to rush the movement. Even if she loved every part of him, Pale was still an infamous criminal, wanted for the murders he had committed oh so carelessly.

Her hand settled on real flesh, not passing through what she had thought to be an illusion.

"Oh, Pale," Meta murmured, enveloping the man in a sudden hug impulsively. She wasn't killed, only held back firmly. "I missed you so much."

It may have been her imagination, but while she sobbed into his shirt, he seemed to be shaking as well. Was he crying, too?

"You're not leaving me again," his voice was muffled in her hair and skin as he trailed kisses down her neck and face. "Come with me. You won't have to help me with anything. Please."

"No," she whispered back. He began to retreat, probably to convince her otherwise or just kidnap her (the second option seemed more likely) but she held on. "I _am_ going to help you with whatever you do. I'm not going to be a bothersome, useless burden."

"They'll call you a witch," he warned, but she felt his arms tighten around her, heard the relief in his voice.

How could she disappoint him?

"I don't care."

And that took her down the path of sin, but Meta was happy, was with Pale, and that made it easier to fall asleep at night.

Him sleeping next to her had that effect, too.

* * *

Unlike my other Evillious Snapshot fics (Others are Clockwork Bonding, A Lost and Lonely Killer, Empty Feeling, Echo of the Original Sin, Shot by Love, and Thoughts of the Sorceress), this one might be continued. Depends.

Well, if you hear the song, you'll realize that MOTHY, that brilliant troll we all love and hate, has screwed every Evillious fanfic over - _again_. Now, the Mother Bear in Moonlit Bear actually has a backstory! She actually _knew_ Eve Moonlit before! GASP!

But I'm happy, because he finally put canon Kiyoteru/Meiko in the damn series, and those who read my works know I love me some Kiyoteru/Meiko! Well, the song implies it was one-sided, but it's me we're talking about here. A hint will grow.

If you read all of the author's note, congratulate me in the review for reaching my fifty-first fic.


	2. Chapter 2

The bloody woman was screaming. Meta, unable to curb her curiosity, walked up to her, wondering why this woman was hysterical. "Miss?"

Blubbering, that teal-haired woman wailed about her children. '_Huh?_'

The woman grabbed her hand with an iron grip, shedding tears mixed with blood streaked onto her. This woman was, to Meta, the picture of a deranged person.

"There's the witch!" Meta's eyes widened. She had thought she'd ditched her pursuers. Meta stood to flee, but the lady was unaware, still holding her tight within her grasp.

"Please," she begged. "Let me go!"

It seemed this woman couldn't hear her. Frantically, Meta searched for a weapon, any weapon, but she had nothing. "Please!"

By then, they had surrounded her, and wrapped her in cold, heavy chains.

"My children! Where are they?!" the woman sobbed, one of her few coherent words.

A man slapped her. "You evil witch," he spat. "How could you kill innocent children?"

Out of the crowd, a blue-haired man rushed through, murmuring pardons and excuses as he hurried to the sobbing woman. While that man came through, Meta caught a streak of brown and a flash of glass.

Pale. Looking as dangerous as ever, but even the great Pale Noël couldn't face them all.

Meta shook her head, and moisture landed on her bound hands. She was crying, shedding tears like the woman in front of her. _Go_, she mouthed. _Run_.

The teal-haired woman was looking at her with fright, as if she too believed that Meta had killed her children. Her lover seemed to be murmuring comforts into her ear, holding her tightly.

Before the crowd surrounded her and blocked her sight, she thought she saw tears running down Pale's face.

And that hurt her far more than anything.

* * *

Saw Mothy's new song, Project 「MA」? Mind-screwing. Eve's children were actually born _dead_. And Adam was a _scientist, _not some wood-chopper. And Eve was a witch, the best in the country. I own nothing, and one last chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

Cold, hard steel brushed constantly at her skin, robbing her of warmth but never warming up, an eternal ice linking her down, trapping her to the cold chair in the cold room where there was no light or warmth. It was draining away everything, and Meta wasn't sure what she had left after that, except for an empty shell.

Her dress had been taken away, too, the dress associated with her given name of 'The Witch', and she was now in the thin white shift of a prisoner, the white that was supposed to symbolize purity but instead showed her status as a sinner doomed to death.

When the scientist first walked into the room, though, she regained everything, the senses, the feelings, the life that she thought she had lost. Actually, the shock had nearly given Meta a heart attack. "_Pale_?!"

No, this was not supposed to happen. He was supposed to stay safe, away from her, so that he would never be condemned to death. He was _not_ supposed to come waltzing into her prison for a futile escape attempt, dressed in the condemning shade of white.

If Pale died. . .

The thought was devastating, and her eyes clouded with grief for a moment before she recovered.

The brown-haired man's face twisted up into a familiar, cold sneer-like smile. Pale only smiled like that in front of the dead body of his prey. A chill went up her back, like cold electricity shooting up her spine.

This man, despite the remarkable similarities, wasn't Pale Noël. Wasn't her Pale.

She should have been relieved that Pale would live, was safe and away from her, but the devastation she felt at the thought of him washed away, replaced by the knowledge that she was alone, with a stranger, and had nothing once more.

"Hello, Meta Salmhofer," the man continued to smile, and it occurred to Meta that this expression on his face was one this man, this man who wasn't Pale enjoyed wearing. _His_ white clothes, she noticed, was the fine garments of a rich and important man in society. And anyways, Pale would never voluntarily wear white. "My name is Seth. Seth Twiright."

_Not Pale,_ her mind reminded her. _Not Pale at all._

But the similarities. . . Couldn't she pretend like she did when she was young, pretending that she had parents, had friends, knew what love was? Pretend to fill in the new holes sinking into appearance at the crushing, numbing sorrow battering away at her like powerful waves against weak sand walls?

She could pretend he was Pale, right?

So without listening carefully to what he was saying – Seeds of God, Project MA, birth of Twin Gods absolutely necessary, uh-huh, got it – she agreed to what he proposed to her, because in her mind, clouded by the desperate need for something other than this coldness, something warm and soft and bright like the feeling she got when she was near Pale, anything could be done.

Maybe she'd regret it later, be it years or months or weeks or days or even hours after this, but that the moment, she just wanted to pretend that this white-robed man with the smile of a demon was her murdering lover who was getting her out, out of the tainting darkness and into a purifying light where they could start all over again.

* * *

I should really work on finishing fics before starting new ones. . .

Oh, well. Anyone seen the Fanbook for the Story of Evil? I didn't, that's for sure.

Thank you for reading!


End file.
